The holiday season is upon us all, and Santa Kosh has begun checking his lists to see who’s naughty, who’s nice, and who’s really really nice. The chatroom chimes in with a cornucopia of Santa Kosh and B5 related Christmas jokes.

Listener Feedback: In voicemail, Iron Eagle comments on “Geometry of Shadows”, and responds to Jarsto; Jason in KC comments on character theme music possibilities; Mark from Lowell on Show #34 and what the Grey Council learned when about Valen/Sinclair; comment on Tim’s complaints about technomages; Thomas from Flagstaff welcomes Jarsto as a show addition; Jarsto likes hearing project updates from B5 alumni; Jarsto comments on “Geometry of Shadows” and highlights a rift between fans for and against technomages, and how the Drazi method of leadership selection might work on current-day Earth; Edmund from Greeneville on the possible improvements for any future All Boys geeking shows; CA in Phoenix enjoys the show so far, and wants more fun interviews. Tim reads an email from Edmund about the escalation of the Drazi fights in “Geometry of Shadows”, and wonders if the Shadows might have influenced the escalation of violence in the Drazi Purple/Green conflict.

Deep Geeking: Tim and Summer continue episode analysis with “A Distant Star”, and given that Russ Tamblyn was featured, Tim and Summer ask Jeff what it was like to work with some high profile guest stars over the years in the show.

In talking about an episode that they both consider to be one of the weakest of Season 2, despite the fact that D. C. Fontana is credited with writing it, the dialogue seemed to be less than optimal in flow between characters and seemingly incongruent confluence of unlikely events.

“A Distant Star”

Would the Shadows have left the Starfuries alone, or would it really have gone back and made sure that they hadn’t survived to talk about their existence? Or were there just too many little things that needed to be setup in this episode that the weight caused the structure of the actual episode to collapse? The technobabble runs fast and deep here, and having all that happen just to give Keffer a search for truth and meaning this season seems a little weak.

How did this episode influence JMS in his resulting feat of writing all of the episodes of Seasons 3 and 4, or was it even an influence at all? We may never know.

Shameless related begging: Summer’s also really hoping to convince the publisher to eventually do a collection on Babylon 5. If you’d be interested in buying one if they did do a B5 collection, let Summer know.

We are still considering doing a separate B5 Fan Tales segment in the future, so send us those favorite anecdotes of yours.

Your feedback does matter, and is welcome! You can call, or email us and tell us what you think… and likely hear it played or read on the show. Please try to keep the voicemail comments as brief as possible.

Greetings fellow B-5 fans
The Keefer starfury pilot character was a product of TNT making a suggestion to JMS accorrding to JMS on the DVD commentary. JMS puts in the “top gun like pilot” but ends up killing him off in Vorlon fashion.

The Cortez is exploring the rim, sector 800 i believe and that is moving towards Zahudum’s galactic address. It only makes sense that the shadows might be shadowing a ship that is exploring near their neighborhood. …Okay its not the greatest B5 episode but its good for laying the foundation for the Egyptian prayer which is echoed later. The relationship between Sheridan and Maynard is great for anyone that has ever served in the military and speaks to the stories of misadventure, the —- stories instead of just the war/combat stories and you can feel the bond between the characters. The ribbing Maynard gives Sheridan is realistic and the best way to think of it is of two old salty Navy ship captains and the difference between having a shore command verses being out to sea. My favorite line is “the pull of the big empty”.

how is this for a sign off “Do you have anything worth living for? ….the babylon5podcast….”

I had always gotten the impression that the shadow ship had lost track of the starfury and just couldn’t sense it with all the interference from hyperspace. The starfury in turn was able to see the shadow ship visually because it is so much larger.

Speaking of music, I have a CD by the Be Fives that I purchased at a B5 convention years ago. It’s a collection of songs sung by some of the cast members (Mira Furlan, Claudia Christian, Andreas Katsulas, Peter Jurasic, and Bill Mumy), and at least one or two are written for the album. I hadn’t heard any songs off of it on the podcast as of yet and wasn’t sure if that might be something you are interested in. Normally I don’t share music over the internet, but as one podcaster to another and considering the nature of your podcast, I thought I would make the offer.